THE HON ANDREW HASTIE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CANNING

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEW WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS, AFTERNOON BRIEFING

Monday 23 March 2026

Topics: Labor’s framework for data centres; SA election; housing; fuel security; conflict in the Middle East.

E&OE……………………………………

PATRICIA KARVELAS: For the Opposition's view, I want to bring in Andrew Hastie, the Shadow Industry and Sovereign Capability Minister. Welcome.

ANDREW HASTIE: Good to be with you, PK.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Not really good times, though, but we're going to start on the new data centre guidelines announced today. Is the government, in your view, creating the best conditions for investment?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think one of the things that is really important for the AI revolution is energy security - they need cheap, reliable energy. If you look at the U.S. – just to keep pace with the AI revolution, they need to be adding about 80 gigawatts every year to their grid. They're only adding 65 which is why you're seeing a lot of the AI primes invest in their own energy, whether it be gas or nuclear. What the government is saying here is: "you’ve got to invest in your own renewables." But everyone knows that you can't power AI centres off renewables alone, you actually need baseload power from coal or gas or nuclear. If you go to an AI centre or a data centre in this country, you'll find, generally speaking, a Rolls Royce generator to back it all up, powered by diesel.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You think we need to not just be energy agnostic, but actively avoid renewables in these centres. Why?

ANDREW HASTIE: No, not avoid renewables. But if you look at Labor's Future Made in Australia policy, in the act, it actually precludes any new projects that are powered by crude oil, coal or gas. So they don't really have any options here – they've got to say to these AI businesses or data centres: "you've got to power it off renewables," and it's just not a reliable way to run a data centre.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: But isn't it incumbent on anyone who wants to build a data centre to actually do this and to make it achievable with renewable power that they have to invest in?

ANDREW HASTIE: Well, we're technology agnostic, but we're also going to dump Net Zero if we win government. We believe we have an energy abundance in this country – coal, gas, uranium – and we think that Australia could be a great place to invest in AI and data centres – only if we get the energy settings right. Renewables just won't generate affordable, reliable power for those centres to be realised. So this is fanciful stuff from Labor.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. You are the sovereign capability spokesperson. There are almost constant and daily announcements about AI job losses. It feels to me like we're very selective in the job losses we care about sometimes in this country. A lot of people are losing their jobs because of the AI revolution, and there's not really a whimper or a discussion from federal politicians. Is that a weakness?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think it's going to be very painful. I mean, it's already here, particularly in the services sector. There are two forms of labour that are going to be impacted by AI, and cognitive labour – the services sector – is going to be impacted far more than physical labour. You're still going to need someone to install your air conditioner, to do a range of jobs that are trade related, whereas ChatGPT is impacting accounting, the legal profession, journalism, even staffing. The speed at which ChatGPT can generate an answer to a question – it has to be tested, of course – is mind boggling. So cognitive labour, the services sector, those people in the Zoom economy, I think are going to be impacted more than those who work in the Bunnings economy.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: They will be and yet there doesn't seem to be a national panic about it. Should there be?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think we should be thinking about this, definitely. This is something that we've got to get ahead of, we've got to understand it, and we've also got to understand the opportunities as well. One of the things I'm really excited about for AI is the ability to recover lost advanced manufacturing and supply chains. A lot of the big multinationals moved offshore to get cheaper labour and if we can get advanced robotics and AI powering advanced manufacturing in this country, it'll create more jobs and reshore a lot of that lost capability.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I want to change the topic – I'm going to do that a few times – but we're going to go to the South Australian election result. Obviously, a landslide for Labor there, and they won that fair and square. But at the same time, One Nation has now beaten your political party. Does that surprise you?

ANDREW HASTIE: I'm not that surprised, I thought the polling was fairly accurate, there was a definite trend line for some time. But I think what we saw on the centre-right on the weekend was a cannibalisation of the vote, and all that did was deliver a thumping majority for Peter Malinauskas and South Australian Labor. That's the risk here – that we deliver perpetual Labor governments because the centre-right is cannibalising its vote, and that's a problem. But I think out of all of this – I like Formula One – to use a Formula One metaphor: if your car isn't fast enough, you've got to go and build a new faster car. And that's the thing facing the Liberal Party. We're using an old car – we need a new car, fit for purpose, and that's more competitive. Rather than talking about the Opposition, I want to talk about how we be better for the Australian people.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay, so how do you be better for the Australian people? Does that mean organisationally you need to be sharper and smarter.in terms of the way that you campaign? Or is it actually back to some of the things you've been campaigning on before you came back to the frontbench, some of the big issues that you think are resonating in the community?

ANDREW HASTIE: It's a vision first – where do we want Australia to be in 10 years? And then it's the policies that we need to get there. Energy security is critical – that's why we've dumped Net Zero. Immigration has been too high, and the standards are too low – that's why we're going to cut immigration. Then, of course, it's making the economy work for regular Australians who feel left behind – people who are priced out of the housing market, they feel like they can't get ahead, they're under water with all their bills. We want to have a fairer Australia for all, and that means lifting productivity which drives real wage growth, which is why getting advanced manufacturing back in this country is so important.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You mentioned housing. There's a lot of proposals on the table at the moment that Labor is obviously considering for the Budget, which is about changing housing taxes. Now, some of your colleagues have long argued that for you to be serious with the Australian public, you need to look at these intergenerational questions, because the tax settings are beneficial to boomers. You've had comments about boomers in the past. Are you sympathetic to that view?

ANDREW HASTIE: I am sympathetic to that view. I think there's a lot of young Australians – I'm 43, I own one property, no investment properties, and I consider myself very fortunate that I was able to get into the market 10 years ago during the cheap credit boom. The cheap credit boom is now over. After 10 years of the RBA pumping a lot of cheap money into the system, that money is no longer available to people, and inflation is hitting both renters and those with a mortgage. Those who want to get into the housing market just can't – they can't get their money together and get enough of it to get a deposit. I'm very sympathetic to housing, I want to see younger Australians –

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And changing perhaps the tax settings?

ANDREW HASTIE: This is a discussion that we'll have in Shadow Cabinet, but I want to fight for my generation and the generations below.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay, you're piquing my interest. I understand you're going to have it confidentially – I get all that – but are you saying to me, you understand the case for looking at things like negative giving for capital gains tax concessions and thinking a bit more strategically about these things?

ANDREW HASTIE: People feel like they have no control over their lives, and they want to take back control, and they see the housing market, particularly, as rigged against them. And so there's a policy debate to be had, but the politics have already bolted. Young Australians want to tear down the system because it doesn't work for them, and if we're not responsive to that as a party, we may well become extinct – that's the reality.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: That's a really powerful point, I'm going to pick your brain about that again in the future. I want to talk to you quickly about the war in the Middle East. You were pretty critical of Donald Trump's intervention and criticism of Australia. Some of your colleagues, including Dave Sharma, who was on the show, said that they don't want to criticise Donald Trump, don't want a running commentary – there's all this sort of politeness about Trump. I feel like maybe the public doesn't like that so much, they want some more straight talking from politicians. Should we be prepared to take on Trump more?

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, I think so. President Trump doesn't mind giving people a spray on social media. It's funny – speaking of boomers – I copped a bit of a lecture from boomers about my comments. But they'll apply one standard for President Trump and then apply a different standard for someone like me when I push back a little bit. One thing that President Trump respects is strength and an honest partnership, an honest friendship, requires honesty. And to suggest that we haven't been a good ally when there's 500 dead Australians who served in Vietnam - a war that President Trump did not serve in – that kind of got my back up. So you go from the policy to the visceral very quickly in those circumstances.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Are you worried about how this war is going and the impact on the world economy? I mean, how worried should we be?

ANDREW HASTIE: I think we should be very worried. I don't think President Trump anticipated that the Strait of Hormuz would still be closed. I don't think the government anticipated that it would still be closed, which is why I think there's been an absence of a plan to deal with our fuel security. That's why we're now seeing shortages across the country, we're seeing price spikes, and that's a real problem going forward.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Would you like to see Trump find an exit ramp?

ANDREW HASTIE: I don't know enough about the war, but certainly –

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You've actually fought in wars, though, so you're across what looks like it's working.

ANDREW HASTIE: I'm just very circumspect about getting involved in wars because oftentimes it's not like any other area of public policy. Getting in is easy enough, getting out is very hard. It took us a long time to get out of Afghanistan and when we left, we left on unfavourable terms. I'm not saying there's a parallel here, I'm simply saying that everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face – to quote Mike Tyson – and I think that's what we're learning here in the Middle East now.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And what's happening? Who's getting punched in the face?

ANDREW HASTIE: I don't think that anyone expected the Iranians to have us by the balls, as they do in the Strait of Hormuz. And that's squeezing a lot of countries who are allied to the United States and who are dependent upon the importation of hydrocarbons out of the Middle East.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And right now, it's Australian consumers. Obviously, the lives that are getting lost – I want to make that point – are the most important. But for our country and people watching, Australian consumers are getting smashed by this.

ANDREW HASTIE: Families, seniors, businesses, farmers are panicked and the longer this goes on, the harder it's going to get. I hit $3 on the weekend for a litre of diesel, people are talking about it going up to $4. If that happens, it's going to be really tough across the economy.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Andrew Hastie, always love having you on the show. Thank you.

ANDREW HASTIE: Thanks, PK.

[ENDS]